Art News ·
David Hockney's dog paintings: Stanley goes to auction for the first time
By Rich
In 1994 and 1995 David Hockney painted his two dachshunds more than forty times. Hockney died at home in London on 11 June, aged 88, and now one of those paintings is coming to auction for the first time.
Dog Painting 17 shows Stanley, the older of the two dogs, curled up asleep on a cushion. It is a small oil on canvas, 13 by 21¾ inches, painted in 1995, and it carries an estimate of £1.5 million to £2.5 million. None of the dog paintings has been offered at auction before.
The sale, the viewing and Frieze
The painting is in Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale, at 8 King Street, St James’s, on Wednesday 14 October at 7pm. It goes on view there from 8 October, free to anyone who wants to see it.
The auction falls in Frieze week. Frieze London and Frieze Masters run in The Regent’s Park from 14 to 18 October, and the 14th is their invitation-only preview day, so the sale takes place on the evening the fairs open. The public can visit from 1pm on Thursday 15 October until Sunday 18 October. Frieze London, for contemporary art, is at the south end of the park, and Frieze Masters, for older art, is at the north-east corner, with a free shuttle bus between the two.
## Stanley and Boodgie
Hockney picked Stanley out as a puppy in 1987 and named him after Stan Laurel. Boodgie, the quieter of the two, came later. Both lived with him in the Hollywood Hills, and according to his authorised biographer, Christopher Simon Sykes, house-training was never much of a priority.
The paintings came out of a bad stretch. Hockney had lost a number of friends to Aids, and the death of Henry Geldzahler, one of his oldest friends, hit him hard. He took the dogs to Malibu and painted them there, with easels set up around the house so he could start the moment they settled. “I realized I was painting my best friends, Stanley and Boodgie,” he said.
The series was first shown in spring 1995 at L.A. Louver in Venice, California, with twenty-five of the paintings hung upstairs. Hockney said the show drew 7,000 people in four days, many of them with their own dogs. The seller of Dog Painting 17 bought it after that exhibition. That summer the dogs went to the 1853 Gallery at Salts Mill in Saltaire, a few miles from Bradford, where Hockney was born.
Where the other dog paintings are
Most of them never left him. Six are believed to be in private hands, and the rest belong to the David Hockney Foundation, which lists each privately owned painting in its catalogue. Three of the Foundation’s own were on public view in London as recently as 2023.
- Dog Painting 13, 1995. Private collection, 21 by 30 inches, the second largest of the six in private hands. The Foundation uses it to illustrate 1995 in its chronology of Hockney’s life.
- Dog Painting 22, 1995. Private collection. At 28 by 29 inches, almost square, it is the largest of the privately owned group.
- Dog Painting 34, 1995. Private collection, 18 by 25½ inches. With Dog Paintings 25 and 27, both 18¼ by 25¾ inches, and Dog Painting 17, it makes up the six.
- Dog Painting 19, 1995. David Hockney Foundation. Lent to Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney at the Wallace Collection, London, which ran from March to October 2023.
- Dog Painting 30, 1995. David Hockney Foundation. Shown in the same exhibition.
- Dog Painting 41, 1995. David Hockney Foundation. Also shown at the Wallace Collection.
What the sale means
A first sale sets the reference point. With the Foundation holding most of the series, few of these paintings are likely to follow it onto the market, and whatever Dog Painting 17 makes on 14 October will be the figure the next one is measured against. It is also, at 13 by 21¾ inches, the smallest of the six in private hands.
For most collectors the dogs arrive as prints. In 1998 Hockney made Dog Wall, fifteen etchings of Stanley and Boodgie, and single sheets from it do reach the market. Dog Etching No. 5 was offered in London on 19 September with an estimate of £20,000 to £30,000.
If you own a Hockney print, from the dog etchings or any other series, the first question is which edition it belongs to, and whether it is an edition at all: his images have been printed as posters in very large numbers, and a framed poster can pass for a print. Our Hockney valuation page explains what we look for, and a valuation carries no obligation to sell.
